Ink
by xiaoyings
Summary: It's his turn to catch her. [SaiIno]
1. Chapter 1

(disclaimer: i don't own anything, but Sai, Ino and Neji are my baes. 614 didn't happen. This is postwar I guess.)

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><p><strong>ink<strong>

part i ;

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><p>It was his turn to catch her.<p>

It was a very intimate gesture, Sai figured, and he'd never known anyone outside Team 10 who'd ever done it – maybe Kiba, and Rock Lee, once – but right now Choji was fighting and Shikamaru was too far away. He was the only one who could do it.

He watched her body sway sideways, a moment more of hesitation before she hits the ground. Shikamaru yelled something but he couldn't hear it clearly. Finally, he threw himself forward to catch her rather inelegantly (her head hit his chest, and he was sure he pulled a muscle on his leg), but that was not important. Naruto had told him, an unspoken rule of working with Team 10 was to _never – ever – let Ino's body hit the ground_ when she does the mind body switch.

He wasn't quite sure why. For tactical and practical purposes, it sure made sense. When she transfers her consciousness to another body, it creates a vulnerable spot in the team. A teammate must keep a lookout, in case the enemy finds out the jutsu's weakness and decides to go after her.

But the zealousness with which her teammates adhered to that rule he found a little more suspect. He had never asked Shikamaru – he was always irritable these days and Sai had a feeling the tactical genius didn't like him. Lee said something vague about girls and … _chivalry,_ was it? Kiba shrugged and said it was instinct, besides, _she'd never let_ _you hear the end of it if you let her touch the ground._

_Instinct. _The naturalness of certain actions had always fascinated Sai. He was a conditioned soldier. His movements, battle or not, were learned, by the book, and he longed to be able to express himself more… naturally, without putting too much thought or effort. His personality was that he had no observable personality whatsoever.

_Blank slate_, he'd heard a captain call him. He wondered... _spontaneity,_ could he find a way to learn it too?

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><p><em>He<em> had caught _her_ attention first.

Judging by Sakura's reaction – _Ino, you're being such a bimbo _– it wasn't an appropriate thing to do to a comrade you just met, so he figured the tightening in his chest was just an unpleasant reaction to an unpleasant event, and he thought no more of it. In any case, her interest dwindled after a few meetings; by the time they were on a _hi, hello, wanna join us for lunch_ basis, she would have forgotten what she did during that first encounter, had he not brought it up.

_I did that a lot back then, didn't I, _she had said with a laugh, two years later, after four rounds of sake, when he mentioned it. Sakura said attending these get-togethers will help him mix better with others, so he did.

_Yeah, Ino, you were such a flirt_, Tenten said teasingly. _Remember that time you flirted with Neji during the Chuunin exams? We must've been babies then. He was so mad!_

This sent a ripple of laughter across the table. Sai laughed along, though he wasn't so sure what the punchline was.

_Man, you sure were gutsy. Neji was such a scary turd back then._

Neji gave some sort of undignified snort. He was slightly flushed from all he had to drink, muttered something that made Ino laugh and blush a little, or maybe that was the alcohol too.

He never knew the full history between those two – actually, he didn't know much about any of Ino's past relationships, or even much _about herself_ at all. It was impossible to get her alone these days anyway. Between Ibiki overworking her at the Intelligence Division and Sakura insisting she put in more hours at the hospital, Ino spent most of her off-days holed up in her house or else flanked by Choji and Shikamaru on either side, in which case Sai would hesitate to approach because he'd feel he would be disrupting something important.

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><p>He felt something… <em>electric<em> when he caught her. It started out as a little tingling, in his arms (muscle strain, probably, from catching her at such a strange angle), followed by a tightened chest (must be the result of her head bumping it), finally culminating to a strange wave passing through his stomach (for this he had no explanation, he pondered the possibility of him having unknowingly eaten a poisonous mushroom which means he was probably going to die soon).

Shikamaru yelled louder. _Chakra blades coming at your 2 'o clock, get your ass out of there!_ As quickly as he could, he summoned one of his drawings to get him and Ino out of the line of fire.

The fight ended quickly. Ino returned to her body, muttered a soft _thanks _but he could tell she wasn't very pleased about something. Shikamaru approached and for some reason he could not follow, they got into a verbal sparring match about who did what wrong.

_You were supposed to get out of there when you got the information, what did you take that extra five seconds for?_

_You think I didn't_ try? _Shikamaru, get your head out of your ass!_

Choji caught Sai's eyes and smiled apologetically. _Break it up guys, let's head home before it gets dark._

Shikamaru and Ino barely spoke to each other the whole way home. Upon arriving, the group split up – Shikamaru, to Tsunade's office; Choji, to an after-mission BBQ; Ino, to the hospital, to see Sakura, probably. Sai didn't have anywhere specific to go. He caught up with Ino in front of the hospital.

"Oh, are you injured? You should have said something, if it wasn't serious I could have healed it right away."

He shook his head no, it wasn't serious, just maybe he twisted an ankle and strained some muscles in his arms. And no, he didn't tell her then because she didn't seem to be in the mood after fighting with Shikamaru.

Her expression relaxed a little. "I'm sorry. Shikamaru's acting like a bitter old man lately, I couldn't take it."

"Perhaps he and the Kazekage's sister are fighting?"

Ino rolled her eyes. "Ugh, who knows? He doesn't tell me anything these days. Anyway, he shouldn't be taking it out on Choji and me, I won't stand for it."

He didn't realize they had reached the minor injuries unit until she pointed it out. "Didn't you say you wanted something fixed? Or did you want to see Sakura too?"

The last part, he figured, was meant to be teasing. One didn't need to see the Head Medical Nin over child scratches and pulled muscles. He smiled and hoped it was the socially acceptable thing to do in these situations.

"Ino-san, I'd like to talk to you more sometime. Maybe we could have a meal together?" He wasn't sure if the words came out alright. Replaying what he said in his mind, he wondered what his more upfront comrades like Naruto or Lee or Kiba would have said and quietly wished he had paid more attention when the people around him did these things.

"Oh, you mean like with Sakura? Now?" He didn't understand how she made the logical jump and end up with that conclusion, but it could have been much worse. She could have made a disgusted face and turned around without giving an answer – his books say that was a very possible reaction – so he went with it.

"Yes, if that's okay."

"O-okay, let me just check with her if she's busy." For a moment, she looked as confused as he was, but he must have been imagining it. No, that wasn't possible, no one could be as clueless as he was when it came to social interactions.

But Sakura wasn't available, she had _tons of work to do, Tsunade-sama will kill me if I don't get this done by the end of the day – besides, Naruto wants to have dinner with Hinata, you guys will be fine, right? _So it was to be his first date with Ino, or at least he hoped so.


	2. Chapter 2

(disclaimer: I don't own anything, except the words to this fic i guess.)

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><p><strong>ink<strong>

part ii ;

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><p><em>So what are your hobbies?<em>

He liked people watching, he said. He has never done that with another person before, as it wasn't exactly a convivial activity, but Ino took him up on it anyway. They were up on the roof of his apartment, watching people pass by, some with purpose and a destination, others going in a roundabout aimless manner only boredom could have brought about.

She gave an indelicate snort when Choji walked past with his girlfriend. Ino didn't like the new girl _at all_, she was _condescending (_lithe, pixie-like with a snub nose, and had a habit of lifting her chin when talking to people_),_ but Ino had to be nice to her or else it would hurt Choji's feelings. In contrast, she giggled when Naruto came by with Hinata. They're adorable, Ino said, _I__ hope they stay together a long time_.

She gave away hopes and scorn just like that, and it made Sai a little nervous and more than a little bit insecure - what did she think of him then? (She called him sweet, once, but she could have been lying, like when he called her beautiful the first time.)

They watched people until noon. Sometimes they made stories up about which person was headed where, why, with whom ('_Mr. Redhead is on his way home after a night of drinking - see the way he staggers and misses every other step? His wife Mrs. Redhead, will talk his ears off until he pees his pants or passes out on the front door'_), and it was fun until they both got hungry and she suggested they go to lunch.

They passed Shikamaru and Temari on the way. He felt her grip tighten around his arm when Temari gave an icy nod in exchange for her cheery greeting_. _Shikamaru didn't so much as grunt, and when they were well out of earshot Ino shook her head in obvious disappointment.

_Nothing, he tells me nothing these days._

Sai contemplated asking her if she felt threatened by Temari's presence, but ultimately decided against it. She was cheerful again during lunch, and he didn't think much about it.

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><p>With Ino he got to talk about many things.<p>

They talked about parents, how he had none to speak of and how she lost her favorite person in the world.

They talked about siblings, how he had Shin, who was not related to him by blood, but complimented his drawings. She said Choji and Shikamaru were about the closest she had for siblings, and though they got on her nerves and rarely ever said sentimental things, she knew they cared even without saying a word. _Golden bonds, _their dads called it.

They talked about marriage, though he didn't know much about it. She said she had become cynic, after five or so boyfriends – she wouldn't reveal the actual number – but she wanted two kids, a boy and a girl. The boy would be a bit shy, and the girl would be just like her. They'd look out for each other, especially when their parents weren't around. Sai thought the idea was nice, and by the end of the night he had an image in his head: two babies, dangling on each of his arms, one blonde and the other with ink-black unruly hair.

They talked about love, and here she cried a little. She said she was always falling for the wrong sort – how it was the same dark haired boy one after the other, the same dark eyes and cold heart that didn't love her back or as much as she wanted them to. He had never been crazy about his looks nor did he particularly hate them, but watching her cry, he wished his hair and eyes were a different color.

Lately, they had talked about wishes. He wasn't sure what he wanted, he said, but sometimes he wished he'd known all of them when they were young, so he'd have stories of his own to tell that weren't dark or bloodied ('_Remember when you fell off the swing because I pushed you too hard?')._

Her wish was simpler; she wished she were stronger. She wanted strength like Sakura and Tsunade, a straightforward kind of power, the kind that could _hurt_.

_('You're a kunoichi but you need to stop fighting like a girl.')_

Tenten always said, in battle it doesn't matter if you're a man or a woman, but Ino hated being pushed to the sidelines anyway, left with that sinking feeling that she was weighing her team down. _No, stay here. It's too risky – That technique only works if I use the Kagemane no Jutsu to hold the enemy down–_

Not one dared say it in front of her, out of respect for her feelings or as preemption against her irate temper, but still she hated being the weakest link in a team.

_I'll show them_, she said, _I can be plenty useful in battle._

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><p>It came as no surprise when she became Ibiki's apprentice, but people didn't expect her to rise up the ranks and improve that quickly. No one knew for sure what went on in that division, but rumor had it some of the more difficult and crucial interrogations the past year had really been carried out by Inoichi's daughter. She was even more brutal than her father, they said.<p>

Sai had seen firsthand that one time she came out of the interrogation room with blood on her cheek. She didn't like blood on her clothes, she said, because they were hard to wash off, but she wore the scars with pride.

_That sunshine hair._ He wondered how terrified the detainee had been when he realized this beautiful golden thing would eventually destroy him.

"All done, sir. Subject offered some resistance, but nothing I couldn't handle."

"Good work," Ibiki said. "I expected no less from the best in our division."

Later, the bit of information she weaseled out of that traitor would turn out to save all their asses on the mission. _Thank Yamanaka-san for me_, Yamato had said. (Was that a _wink?)_

Even so, many people were not convinced. He had heard, on multiple occasions, skeptical villagers say the Yamanaka girl training under the terrifying Morino Ibiki was just a gimmick, to catch enemies off-guard, because _really, no one could be that pretty and skilled_. They called her the Intel Division's mascot, a warrior-princess myth to sow confidence in young girls.

_My daughter went to the Academy with the girl. She was smarter than some, but she surely wasn't anything special – Wasn't she the one who chased after Uchiha Sasuke? – I heard Inoichi-san spoiled his daughter a great deal – Totally had the princess complex. No way she could be that great. It's just tactics, I'm sure –_

The taunts about being Ibiki's lackey didn't faze her much, to be honest. She donned the division's special black coat with pride. She was good at her craft and she knew it, the guys in her division knew it, it didn't matter that the general public had a different opinion. Even better, she said, because this way she wouldn't be an obvious target in case enemies decide to strike back. Besides, these townspeople rarely ever knew anything about the system that protects them, and it was better that way.

But sometimes when the uniform was off and she was 'just Ino' again, she'd seek him out at his favorite drawing spot, looking forlorn and ready to cry on his shoulder. On these very rare occasions, Sai would think to himself, _is this it… what they call human frailty? _

To calm her, he traced phantom flowers on the back of her hand (on some days, he used actual paint but they washed off and stained her cheeks when she cried). In between held breaths and lonely sobs she'd tell him stories. The stories didn't always make sense, but they poured out of her one after the other as if it were imperative she let them out, or else. He laughed or made disagreeing noises whenever he deemed appropriate, though he always worried his timing or reaction was off. But mostly he just listened, and she didn't seem to mind.

(It rained once during one of their little talks. Her long hair stuck to his face and his clothes, but he didn't brush them away.)

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><p>She looked really good with her hair down, like silky sunlight spilling on her shoulders. She said she had no time to fix her hair, because Sakura had used up all the hot water in their apartment <em>again, and she didn't even have long hair!<em>

This was the fourth time they went out this month, and he was getting the hang of her habits… a little. He was sure she was lying about the hot water and not fixing her hair. He didn't know why exactly, but it didn't matter because she looked good anyway. She smiled when he told her.

_By the way, if Lee and Kiba want to be part of this date, too, they're gonna have to pay for themselves,_ she said with a frown._ You call yourselves jounins – seriously, that's your best disguise?_

He couldn't tell exactly the point where they stopped "just going out on a few dates" and start being heavily invested in each other in a "boyfriend-girlfriend-I-really-care-about-you" type of way. She saw him off before his missions and he waited with bated breath when she finished hers.


	3. Chapter 3

(disclaimer: i don't own naruto. i do have quite a few headcanons though. it's sad tbh.)

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><p><strong>ink<strong>

part iii ;

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><p>Most nights Ino waited for Sai at the foot of the stairs leading up to his apartment. She's been there so many times she practically knows where everything is and she doesn't have to wait for him but she does anyway. It's the little things, she said, she liked the sound of the keys, the knob turning, the sight of their shoes lumped together at the entrance when they toss them aside.<p>

Sometimes Sai thinks he'd gotten used to her touch (although she was careful to give them out only in parcels in the beginning) but sometimes he'd wake up next to her and be overcome with panic. He'd feel – _trapped_, and he couldn't feel the arm she used as a headrest. She'd stir slightly and her hair would get in his face but somehow that calmed him a little. When she murmurs _go back to sleep_ he feels like he actually could, though most times he just lies there staring at the ceiling, counting cracks and watching swirling dust in a beam of sunlight.

It was Ino's idea to build a makeshift garden on his veranda. It seemed out of place in that inky hole he called his home – a pitiful excuse for a bachelor's flat in the ragged part of town, it was dark and musty and always smelled of drying paint. Maybe it's the color of her hair emphasized by that dingy backdrop, but she glowed when she moved, and he had the urge to paint her every movement.

The garden soon became her favorite part of his apartment, because it was the only one that didn't smell like ink and moldy paper. He apologized, badly, but she laughed and said she was only joking, she really didn't mind the place smelling like an old paper factory.

They made a makeshift memorial for Shin next to the garden, and she brought a wreath of lilies she'd made herself. He lit a candle while she said a silent prayer for his fallen brother. She stayed for dinner though he couldn't offer much other than grocery-store ramen and inexpensive tea, but she thanked him anyway. She let him kiss her forehead when it was time to say goodnight.

A few days later when Ino visited her father's tombstone, she found a cluster of paper lilies, each carefully drawn and cut, and a real life, still-burning incense sending silver smoke up in the wind.

(She often leaves a trail of earth and crushed petals on the cold floor of his apartment, and somehow it made the place more homey. She smelled like a different flower each time she was there, sometimes even vanilla and strawberry and chamomile. He liked it when she used his shoulder as an armrest, though he had to slouch a little to make up for the height difference.)

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><p>He wondered how many people were in love with her right that moment. He wanted to know who had loved her when and whom she had loved since.<p>

Sai being Sai, he could spend a whole day not being noticed. Naruto always reminded him to _make more noise, you creep, so people don't get a heart attack when they figure out you've been in the room all along. _He heard things – people in this village seemed to talk rather freely of each other's personal lives, even the lives of those they've never met, apparently.

It wasn't news to him, however, that Tsunade-sama disapproved of his and Ino's newfound closeness. There were alliances to be secured, age-old tears that needed to be patched up. It was therefore in the best interest of the village that every one of its best young shinobi marry someone important, not some pasty nobody from Root with no clan inheritance and who could die unidentified in the field.

(Tsunade didn't hate Sai, heavens no. The boy's performance as a shinobi of the Leaf was outstanding, despite that rocky start with Danzo's involvement. The air had been cleared and Sai was doing well, save for the times the boy proved himself hopeless in most social settings. When Shizune let slip that the ex-Root member had been spending a suspicious amount of time with a certain Yamanaka, Tsunade had chuckled, despite herself, and said, _Good, about time someone put some warmth in him. _But politics was politics, and anything that stood in its way could not last.

_Or at least would have to put up a good fight against it._)

After all, Shikamaru was marrying the Kazekage's sister, and though Sakura made it clear she wouldn't marry someone she didn't love, that didn't stop her from receiving proposals from powerful shinobi across the five countries.

Ino didn't deny having received love calls herself, when Sai asked. She already knew his next question before he could rearrange the words in his head. _I'd never marry some bastard who only wanted my bloodline, of course, but I promised Tsunade-sama I'd at least look into it. I wouldn't expect anything to come out of it, though._

Sai felt his stomach turn, a ghost of a lump blocked his throat so he couldn't speak, his heart beating fast and incoherent like an out of tune drum – he'd heard Naruto name this feeling before, he called it _jealousy._

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><p>Jealousy, it turned out, would have a role in the few vaguely exchanged arguments early in their relationship. She didn't like that girl from the art shop, she said, hand on hip, who spoke too close to his face about paints and paper types. He answered pointedly that he didn't like it either when boys ogled her when she walked down the street.<p>

(He soon found out that it was very difficult to win an argument against Ino, once she got started. She swore she never used mind reading jutsu in casual conversation, but he had his suspicions, given the frequency with which she finished his sentences for him or said something just as he was thinking it.)

Nevertheless, the rows were few and rather petty. Ino was surprisingly discerning about his lack of actual experience on emotional things, but long stretched out days at work do not work in his favor. She was especially cranky after completing hospital duty - it always tested her limits and confidence in her skills, seeing how Sakura could do her job so flawlessly. On those days, he tried hard not to provoke her as much as possible.

From her he'd gotten the habit of giving gifts _just because. _After one particular fight, she bought him a scarf and he gave her a picture book of flowers he drew himself. He felt a little embarrassed giving something so impractical, maybe he should have bought 'a cute top' like Sakura said after all. She smiled when he told her so. _I love it, silly. _He swelled with pride when he saw the book displayed on the flower shop window.


	4. Chapter 4

**a/n:** oh man, i started writing this story before the last naruto chapters came out, and with the idea that i'd be able to take as much liberty as i could writing saiino because truthfully i never expected them to be endgame. surprise surprise, kishi decided to make these bbs canon which is wonderful! but i do feel restricted in my writing somehow (which is why i took so long uploading this chapter). however...! i have decided to proceed using the initial idea i had for this story, which means i intend to go "off canon" from time to time. in other words, what actually happened in the manga, particularly in the epilogue chapter, will not have that much of a bearing in this story, even if certain ~facts and couples are the same. basically, forget 699/700 first, yeah? there are still feelings/conflicts that have already been "resolved"(read: bam wham here have qt kids) in the manga that i still want to explore (aka the angst goldmine that is sasuino/shikaino, which are in many ways important to the story i want to tell).

also very quickly let me make a shoutout to the people who read/reviewed/followed/favorited! thank you, you are all very kind :)

(disclaimer: i don't own naruto, but sometimes i wish i did, that way neji could have lived and _we could have had it aaall_ ––– also, saisaku/sainaru broships are very important.)

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><p><strong>ink<strong>

part iv ;

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><p>The first huge fight happens when he asks her, despite himself, knowing it will not end well:<p>

_Do you really only like me because I remind you of Sasuke?_

He had the worst timing, if he said so himself, but it wasn't like he whipped that question up from out of nowhere. It had always been there, from the moment they met, hanging over them like a toxic cloud, ready to rain on any semblance of happiness they managed to come upon.

The row was long and bitter; after a while they weren't fighting about Sasuke anymore, as one winded argument led to another, and another, and another. It ended with Ino slamming the door to his face – that was _his_ apartment, _goddammit_ – and him spending the night at Naruto's. His friend shook his head accusingly, but Sai knew what he was thinking before he had the chance to say it, _You shouldn't have brought that up._

The next day, he went home half-expecting his apartment to have fallen to ruins – it hadn't, and he decided that was a good enough sign. He was tired and didn't catch much sleep (Naruto didn't _own_ a couch and Sai had to sleep on the lint-covered floor), but he convinced himself to drag his inconvenient ass over to Ino's family house to apologize (it was a Sunday and she wouldn't be at Sakura's; the two girls only shared the apartment when Ino had hospital duty). That much he should do at least.

On his way over, he noticed half the people he passed scowling at him. _Strange_, he thought. Had he made enemies overnight without knowing it?

_First rule of dating Ino is_, Naruto would tell him later on, _you break her heart and you're on Shikamaru's shitlist_. Though Ino and Shikamaru had had a noticeable fallout in the past year, with Choji's help they always managed to make up, one way or another.

("Of course they're more than friends," Akimichi Choza had said. "Maybe not in the way most people think. If it wasn't crude, I'd tell you to just ask their fathers but... you know what I mean. Ino-Shika-Cho has always been more than a battle formation. It means _unwavering_ trust and support for each other. Even if you disagree on certain things, you're unable to shake the other persons off, because you're bonded for life. Shikamaru and Ino, those two are almost psychically linked - _see what I did there?" _

Choji's old man laughed. "That whole 'born one day apart' shenanigan. Don't tell anyone I said it, but Inoichi and Shikaku had extra cribs built in their houses so they could put the two babies next to each other when one of them came over. Always fought though. Usually Ino, making Shikaku's poor boy cry a lot. My Choji, of course, was born earlier. Imagine if they all had been born a day from each other!")

Walking the streets of Konoha that day, Sai discovered that when Shikamaru was your enemy, half the village became your enemy, too. Shikaku's son had become some sort of overnight sensation following the events of the Fourth Shinobi World War. Stories of how he took charge orchestrating the attacks of the alliance when his father died, how he fought a reanimated version of his beloved teacher who had died in another battle shortly before, how he'd almost died himself only to be saved by Naruto's sheer desire to help his friends – it made for a hero's tale that struck a chord in the hearts of many villagers.

The stories were all true, of course, but had also become exaggerated over time. At some point, the role Ino and Choji played in them have been dropped entirely from the equation. Ino lost her father, too, and while Nara Shikaku was every bit the great man they said he was, it would have been impossible to communicate his brilliant strategies from HQ to the alliance without Inoichi and his team, and Choza was worth a whole squadron in the battlefield.

Similarly, people seem to have conveniently forgotten that it was Ino, though still green at the time, who had quite literally planted Shikamaru's plans in everyone's minds. In the end Ino had, in more ways than one, been held back in her teammate's shadow, after all.

Nara Shikamaru, the darling of Konoha, if he ever saw one.

Sai found himself rambling, and he could swear the shadows today were darker, like a warning, the closer he got to Ino's house. _I could probably beat Shikamaru in close combat,_ he thought, but then again the latter wouldn't need to come close to wring his neck if he wanted to.

As luck would have it, Ino's mother told him she was out, but _was there something else he needed? _It was there for just a moment, but a certain emotion had passed through her eyes and he caught it; that was when he knew _she_ _knew_ what happened. He identified that sinking feeling in his chest as disappointment. Ino's mother seemed such a nice lady, and she always smiled at him when he came to the shop. He didn't want to be put on _her_ shitlist, too.

(He'd already met Ino's mother once before. She teared up a little when she found out he was her daughter's 'artist friend' who had drawn the lilies of the valley on the wall. _Thank you,_ she had said,_ they remind me of her father._)

The second rule of dating Ino – this Naruto didn't tell him and he had to find out, rather brutally, for himself – was that if you made an enemy of Ino, you were treading shaky waters with Sakura as well. He'd heard about friends having common enemies, and though the two girls had a dubious on-again, off-again friendship, he should have known the same principle would apply.

Sakura's left hook caught his shoulder. It was a mean punch but he could tell she didn't intend to hurt... _much,_ because she really could if she wanted to, that strange woman.

She said it was bad manners to talk about, well, _Sasuke,_ in front of Ino, who swears she'd forgotten all about him but who was she kidding when he broke her heart without so much as a glance, _and that's got to fucking hurt_. Sakura said she believed Ino had definitely matured over the years, but she was sure her friend would still jump in front of a kunai meant for Sasuke if it came down to it. When Sai asked why, after all those years, she sighed and said there was no explanation other than _old wounds never really heal._

Strange expression, Sai thought. There is not one injury on Ino's body he didn't already know about. This one seemed to be the worst of them all, yet she had no scar to show for it. Perhaps as Sakura said this one was still stinging. Something told him it was the case for Sakura as well.

(_Optimistic love. _He'd heard Ino say it on multiple occasions. _The symbol of the Yamanaka clan is the bush clover. _

What good was a positive love if it isn't returned?)

"I don't... quite understand, Sakura," he answered. Wouldn't it be easier to love someone who loves you back?

Sakura gave him a strained look. "That's not how it works, Sai. Not all the time."

They made up before he left for his next mission. Ino spoke first, like she always did. _I'm sorry, I was being unreasonable, promise I'll never flip out on you like that again _– it sounded less like an apology and more like an admonition directed at herself, but it was better than not talking, not knowing, nothing. He apologized, too, and was better at it this time. She kissed him on the corner of his lips –

– o_k, but don't die on this mission, please._

Later that day, he attacked his opponents with more force and malice than usual. It was the first time in a while he had felt like destroying something, _really _obliterating something to make the overall feeling of disgust and stun in his chest go away.

(Uchiha Sasuke, Konoha's rebellious son. That was twice he left the village now. Really, at this point he could burn all his bridges and still have people, _certain_ people, forgive him, care about him.

Sometimes Sai thinks Sasuke had to leave because he couldn't bear to be on the receiving end of that much love. Maybe that's the price of being given an unconditional, unreasoning love you don't deserve.)

Yamato was quick to notice how erratic Sai was behaving and called him out.

_You know better than to waste chakra like that. I didn't think you needed reminding… Sai._

He pored over Sakura's words again and again._ Old wounds never really heal, _will he ever be enough?

* * *

><p>He comes home from another mission an unrecognizable mess of ink and blood, and he passes out just as he enters the village gates. He has no idea how he got to the hospital, but he wakes up with tubes and a mask attached to him, and someone tending to a bright red gash on his skin. He mistakes the cluster of flowers on the bedside table for the moon, and for a moment he thinks he's only dreaming, before falling back into dreamless drug-induced sleep.<p>

The nightmares start a few days later. Mostly flashbacks of things he never wanted to see again, things that were supposed to have burned with the bodies or washed away in the rivers. Things that shouldn't affect him ('Abandon all emotion.') but instead left him with a feeling that his soul was being ripped apart. It's close to a week since the mission ended. _3 days, 37 targets._ Their faces burned at the back of his lids. A tiny hand, severed, holding a flower. He screamed in his sleep.

Ino holds him, just really holds him, like if she let go his body would literally break into pieces. Every night until morning she held him like he would turn to foam and scatter in the wind if she didn't. She said nothing, she didn't need to, but in his head he heard her voice, soothing like rain on dying earth, _Don't go, don't go where I can't hold you, don't go where I can't comfort you._ Sakura did her best coming up with pills that would make him sleep without dreaming, but really it was the warmth of Ino's hand in his, the feel of her hair close to his neck, her soft night-lily scent, that made the nightmares stop.


	5. Chapter 5

(disclaimer: i don't own naruto. what's a love story without a little bit of conflict.)

* * *

><p><strong>ink<strong>

part v ;

* * *

><p>Ino easily takes over half of Sai's life, while he finds it difficult telling where he figures in hers. It's always Ino <em>plus<em> something or someone else — Ino Ibiki's assistant, Ino of the Yamanaka clan, Ino of the golden bonds trio, Ino and Sakura, Ino-Shika-Cho.

Her work keeps her away most of the time. Their encounters are reduced to quick greetings and hurried pecks on the lips in the morning, and at night really she's too tired to do anything. Sai decides he misses their little talks, though Ino had done most of the talking in them. He wakes up to thrown covers and tangled sheets, and extended echoes of gentle words murmured in their sleep. The cycle repeats itself: greet, kiss, covers, mumble, sleep.

Sometimes he thinks he's okay with it, but sometimes he feels like the two of them are a page in a book someone's forgotten to turn.

Ino, for her part, tries — _really_ tries — to make time for him, despite working such impossible hours. On her days off, she'd make it a point to do something together. Sometimes they'd go people watching, like they used to, but she falls asleep almost as soon as they sit down, her head on his chest, her honey hair falling over his shoulders. Other times they just lie around in his apartment, a mess of limbs and discarded clothes, staring at the cracks on his walls, or looking too long at each other (Ino smiles first, and then his lips would follow, like they had a life of their own).

"Someday, we'll repaint this place," she says. His head is still reeling from her touch, and he doesn't answer.

(He tried to teach her drawing once. She was awful with shapes, but seemed to have a good grasp of which colors went well together. She had attempted to draw daisies, but they ended up looking like wonky suns.

"I'm so bad at this," she laughed. There's a black streak where her ink-covered hand touched her cheek.

"Yeah, terrible."

She made a face at him, but he taped the drawing to the wall above his bed anyway.)

She comes home one night and he's slightly shocked. She looks…faded, he thinks, like maybe her hair's a shade lighter, less summer blonde and more winter snow with the sun shining on it. Somehow it makes her look like an old photograph, still beautiful, but worn and blurred at the edges. He tries to tell her, but she shrugs and her face dissolves into a frown.

_You sound like Sakura. Don't you have faith in me?_

It's like a big joke someone's playing on him. Sai has always identified with winter: a film of white over bone and skin, everything dead or dying or asleep. Ino was always summer, its ethereal picture: all sunshine hair and summer sky eyes. There's this collapsed feeling in his chest when he realizes Ino being faded is maybe his winter-like qualities rubbing off on her, and somehow, he doesn't like it.

* * *

><p>Old cracks reappear when Shikamaru suddenly leaves on a diplomatic call across the five countries. No pomp or grand announcement, in true Nara Shikamaru fashion. Even Shikaku had been a bit flashier than this. Shikamaru simply vanishes, like smoke from Asuma's cigarette, and takes Temari with him. He leaves a note on Choji's front door, <em>Gone on a mission round the shinobi states, other details confidential, see you in a while<em>

Scrawled underneath, in small hasty strokes, an afterthought, _tell Ino for me  
><em>

Choji sighs, turning the note over for anything he might have missed. He could already picture Ino's reaction._ Again?! But we just planned the get-together this weekend! How many does he intend to miss? Did he at least say goodbye to Kurenai-sensei?_

Choji makes the fifteen-minute walk over to Sai's apartment. It's one of Ino's rare days off, so she should be there.

Sai opens the door, surprised at first, then smiling. It still made Choji uneasy sometimes, but Ino had told him off once, _don't be ridiculous, Choji, that's just his face._

Ino peeks from under Sai's arm, "Oh, hi! Lovely surprise! Come on in!"

Choji joins them for lunch. They talk, but mostly Ino does, asking him about his work, his parents, his students — _I heard your genin team made it to the final round of the Chuunin exams! Good for them, I see them practicing at our old spot sometimes..._

When they had cleared away the plates, Choji sits Ino down, _I have something to tell you —_

She frowns. _It's Shikamaru, isn't it, _her voice too deflated to even be a question. _What's it this time?_

"A mission," Choji says. He fumbles with the note in his pocket, debates whether he should show it to Ino or not. He remembers the postscript, _tell Ino for me, _and he decides against it.

"Where?"

"Across the five countries."

"How long?"

"Didn't say."

Ino exhales loudly, rubbing her temples. Sai offers to make some tea and leaves the room quietly.

"Ino, you have to understand. His Dad and Asuma-sensei left a lot on his shoulders." Choji can't remember how many times he has used this line to explain Shikamaru's absences over the last three years. Not that it wasn't true, but the words don't carry the same weight as they did before. He wonders how many more times he'd have to say them.

She covers her face with her hands. Choji could tell by her voice that she was trying to keep herself together. "Choji, if it's because of something I did, you'd tell me, right?"

Of course he would. That's the least he could do. It pains him to see her like this, searching for answers while Shikamaru drifts farther and farther away. "It's not your fault. He just has to sort things out on his own. You know him, he's like that. I'm... sorry, Ino."

Ino lowers her hands to the table. She's smiling, and it chills him a little. Her smile resembled Sai's somehow, like she was hiding something underneath it. "You don't have to apologize for him, Choji."_  
><em>

Choji shakes his head. This is the way their friendship has always worked.

Shikamaru was always the _smart _one in their trio, but Ino matched his intellect with her frankness. So starts a long string of arguments. It was a joke among Konoha 11 that 'Golden Bonds' were founded on Shikamaru and Ino's constant bickering and Choji's ability to keep calm while they're at it. But the joke stopped being funny long ago, at least to the three of them. Shikamaru and Ino can't seem to find an end to the fights and Choji is running out of ways to bring them back together.

This is the way their friendship worked, and fell apart. Not with a bang, but with tiny noiseless rifts that got wider over time. When they can't work things out, Shikamaru retreats, and Choji is left to pick up the pieces and painstakingly stitch them back.

_"_This isn't about Temari, is it? Because I swear I already apologized for not being nicer to her in the beginning —"

Choji smiles, with effort. "No, it's not that_."_

Ino laughs, finally, but Choji wonders if it's a good sign at all. He stopped being able to read her laughs and frowns correctly years ago.

* * *

><p><em>("Of course, you'd have to be more than friends,"<em> Choji's dad had said, _"_—_ unwavering trust for each other — that's the only way for the formation to work _—_")_

It was common knowledge that Shikamaru didn't approve of any of Ino's boyfriends, past and present. Choji had his doubts about _some, _but Shikamaru had been unimpressed with _every single one_ of them. Even Kiba, that one summer he tried to get a date with her, had not been exempt from the occasional cold shoulder from the Nara genius.

_In any case, it didn't work out_, Kiba said. It felt..._wrong._ She's one of us. Like a sister, you know?

_What's Shikamaru's deal, anyway? _was the question everyone asked Choji whenever Ino gets a new boyfriend and Shikamaru turns into a crabby old geezer. Choji has been asking himself the same question, too, and even after all these years he wasn't sure he knew the proper answer.

Shikamaru had been especially wary of Sai. _I understand the guy's trying to learn about emotions__,_ he said, _but I don't like the idea that he's dating Ino for __—__ 'practice.' Her feelings aren't something to be toyed with like that.__  
><em>

To be fair, even Sakura was skeptical about the whole 'Sai being with Ino' thing in the beginning. Their friends from the Academy also said they smelled the disaster coming from a mile away.

Both boys from Team 10 had sighed. They've seen it before, sadly, too many times. _Dark hair, dark eyes, a prodigy with an icy past._ Once Sai had made the move, they knew Ino was going to fall, and if the bastard couldn't catch her, they have to be there to do it.

And fall hard Ino did. They could never fault her for liking someone, that wouldn't be fair. She likes who she likes, even though sometimes they wished she didn't.

After the first big fight, Ino came to them. Shikamaru was about ready to strangle Sai but Ino stopped him, hands on his shirt, eyes wild and trembling, _don't, it's my fault, I smothered him._

Shikamaru shot Choji a look, part-grimace, part-_I-told-you-this-would-happen_, part _something else_.

When Ino and Sai reconciled, Shikamaru picked up smoking again. Eyes closed, words slurred, enveloped in silvery willows rising from the tip of his cigarette, he says, _I just don't want her to get hurt again._

It was in moments like this that Choji feels maybe Shikamaru was in love with Ino. Once. _A long time ago_. A different lifetime, maybe. It had to be the only explanation. All that protectiveness. Why he never liked Sasuke from the beginning, and still doesn't. Why after the funeral, when everyone else including Ino had gone home, he promised Inoichi he would never let her follow him to the grave, _no, not her, I don't know what I'd do if I lose her, too._

Choji swore not to tell, so Ino knew nothing of confessions breathed into the air, by lips stained with tears and blood and cigarette ashes. The skin around Shikamaru's eyes was bruised from not getting enough sleep, from waiting, worrying, torturing himself because he could never approach, couldn't stare straight into those deep sea-colored eyes, couldn't bear to_—_

Or maybe Ino knew. She was the best goddamn mind reader on the planet, and they couldn't keep a secret from her anyway, not for long, not if they wanted to. One way or another she always found out, even though she said nothing about it.

It's almost unfair, Choji decides, because in another life Ino would have returned Shikamaru's feelings. Four, five million lifetimes ago, when it wasn't a terrible idea to fall in love with someone you're supposed to be teammates with. Someone you're supposed to be bonded with, but only in _certain _ways. He wonders if that life exists.

_ Golden bonds,_ Choji thinks sadly, it was the biggest fucking contradiction in the history of contradictions...what pulls you together also keeps you apart._  
><em>

* * *

><p>Sai offers to make tea, but really he just wanted to step out of the room for a minute.<p>

The privacy was overwhelming. The Ino-Shika-Cho bond has always been something he understood he couldn't just shove his nose into. They were children together, and that's a thing he can't make up for. He didn't need to, Ino insisted, but his stomach turns anyway at how well those three know each other — inside out, upside down, in circles, through a haze of smoke and words that didn't really need to be uttered.

The way Ino's face fell, really _crumbled,_ at the mention of Shikamaru's name, he wonders if it's gravitation or proximity or plain old fashioned fate that pulled them toward each other, this sun and shadow. He thinks maybe he's standing in the way of something great and inevitable, a featureless pawn in a game of shogi he's going to lose.

The deer and the bush clover.

_But Choza-san said _—

Choza-san said what Choza-san said, and the thought is enough to knock the wind out of his chest.

Choji leaves just before sunset. Sai never did get the tea kettle going, as he had been too wrapped up in his thoughts. When Ino checks up on him later, _You okay? I thought you had died in here._ _I'll walk Choji home, see you in a bit, _he is too stunned still to answer.

He watches their gleaming backs from the window of his apartment, the last rays of sunlight caught in Ino's hair. Ino turns to look at him, red rose smile against frost-white teeth. She waves.

(Sai thinks he's seen this before. Naruto looking at Sakura looking at Sasuke. Love like a long string of pearls, never ending and never returned.

Time isn't kind to all wounds, especially to old ones you only just realized were there all along.)

It's all oddly familiar, though he was sure he'd never felt it before. Whatever that absurd feeling in his stomach means, he thinks, _hopes_, he's wrong.


	6. Chapter 6

Happy New Year everyone!

(disclaimer: i don't own naruto.)

* * *

><p><strong>ink<strong>

part vi ;

* * *

><p>Memory.<p>

What a funny, fickle thing. It takes Sai half a minute to conjure an accurate image of Shin in his head now – the moonshine hair, dark eyes, and pale lips, all pointy bones and wax-like skin underneath the nondescript black clothing of Danzo's Root team. He would have been in his late twenties, Shin, if he had lived. But in Sai's head he is seventeen always. Seventeen and twenty four days, as on the day he departed.

It's even more effort remembering what Danzo-sama looked like, the sound of his voice, as if some part of Sai is resisting the memory, doesn't want to remember.

Ino, on the other hand –

When he closes his eyes and his mind undulates in the delicate state between sleep and consciousness, all he sees is Ino, Ino, Ino. The way she looks beside him on his bed, her flaxen hair, sunshine voice, and pond-like eyes. The lopsided way she smiles when she hears something funny, but tries not to laugh. The way her face lights up, and the sound she makes when she _does_ laugh, like a dozen twinkling roses, or a dozen blooming stars…

Sai could picture all this in his head, complete with backgrounds, voices, even the persimmon taste of her skin in his mouth. Memory is so strange, he thinks. Some things he remembers with detailed clarity, others only through a hazy mist time made when it moved forward, leaving dust to settle on a place where moon-like boys stayed seventeen forever, and where old faces and stories were stacked high on pyres he meant to burn but never did.

Some time after Choji's visit, Sai finds himself avoiding Ino's gaze. It's nighttime, and she's at the veranda, sitting on the floor with her knees drawn to her chest. She's looking up at the portrait of Shin he drew so he doesn't forget. She hums a song – it's a new tune, she says, but it sounds at least a decade old. _Love songs_, she explains, _always sound old, because love stories are the oldest stories in the world. My father told me that._

Maybe she's feeling extra sentimental, but she's wearing his shirt again, the black one he used to wear on his off days. The long sleeves reach up to her fingers, which she uses to draw phantom shapes on the ground.

He bumps into a table, seeing this breathless tableau of her, and she turns to him, her face breaking into a smile first, before crumbling back into a frown. His heart sinks.

"I know something's been bothering you. You've been acting weird all week. Spit it out, Sai."

They don't even fight this time.

Ino has made Sai promise never to lie to her, so whatever he's feeling, even if it's unpleasant, he has to tell her. He feels rage, he says. Not at her, but more at the general unbridled way fate interfered in the world. The words come out of him before he could stop them – _that darned Shikamaru, what does he have on you? - and Choji? unannounced, barging in like that, I bet he has a small –_

Ino frowns at this, and his heart sinks for the second time that night. He wonders if it will keep on sinking, the rest of his life, as long as he's with her.

The initial white-hot anger dissipates, but he hates himself still, if only for saying foul things about her friends (Ino is a lot like Naruto in that if there's anything she cannot tolerate, it's trash-talking her friends).

Anger is replaced by panic; Sai feels his whole body trembling, and he's scared again, like a tiny child, for the first time in many years. _Maybe you deserve someone else, maybe this is all wrong, maybe_

She holds out her hand, stares deep into his dark marshland eyes. She's so sure, as always, so sure he wants to believe her.

"A love like ours," Ino says simply, "we shouldn't test it."

So they don't.

They go about their daily routine, the usual impossible hours where they try very hard to meet, even the occasional stolen kisses that made their friends pretend to gag or blush or turn away, all of it like nothing is different. But something did change, since Shikamaru went away. He couldn't quite put his finger on it – was it the way she gripped him tighter at night, when she wakes up suddenly, sweat glistening on her forehead? Or was it the way he feels restless, clueless, absolutely helpless when Choji shakes his head no, he hasn't heard from Shikamaru, and Ino is one fake smile away from being irretrievably shattered?

(He knew her smiles as well as she knew his. Okay, maybe she was a better reader of expressions, given that she also knew how to read minds. But he was very observant, too.

She only started using the fake smiles after they started dating. Maybe she picked it up from him; it's a habit he hasn't quite been able to shake. Like he always said, they were effective in getting him out of most troubles. Ino used to tell him, _don't smile if you don't mean it, _so he found it strange she didn't take her own advice.

But he knew now that the world is not easily divided into real smiles and make-believe ones. There are many gray areas – the half-joy-half-grimaces, the not-quite smiles, smiles that were born of memories sighed into dampened pillows in the middle of the night when there's something or someone missing on the other side of the bed. The world was full of gray emotions that are half-mirth and half-sadness, and he has only managed to scratch a shallow surface.)

It's at this point in their relationship that Sai notices the number of his missions pick up, and then drop. He starts to think maybe the Hokage has taken him off active duty for a grave error he doesn't remember committing (maybe that one time he collapsed and was sent to the hospital? But that was so long ago!), until one day he gets summoned to the Hokage Tower.

"I'm making you ANBU captain," the Hokage says. It sounds less like a promotion and more like a punishment, but Sai keeps the comment to himself.

"With your skills I could have made you captain a long time ago. I know you're used to working alone or with Team Kakashi, so I thought it might be a good idea to wait a few years, see if anything comes out of your whole 'learning about people' project. The missions are going to get difficult from here on, but I have faith in your abilities. You have a home now to protect and come back to, so, try not to get yourself killed on the field."

He can't remember what he said to the Hokage at the meeting, other than he had not been in a position to decline. He walks home, his feet feeling light in one step, heavy in another, a lump in his throat and a ghost boulder weighing down his chest. From a distance, he sees the light on in his room – in _their_ room – and he starts running. He climbs the stairs two steps at a time. Finally, he reaches the door, heart drumming in his ears and chest, turns the knob, pushes it open –

Sai doesn't know how Ino does it, it's supposed to be ANBU-only information, but she knows. She beams at him, something like a pie in her hands, and says, "Your subordinates better behave themselves or they'll have to deal with me."

Sai beams, too, and though he hasn't done anything as a captain yet, he feels proud.

He remembers the Hokage's words, _You have a home now to protect and return to. Try not to get yourself killed on the field._

Ino laughs when he sloppily blows the single candle pierced in the middle of the pie.

He thinks, so this is what _home_ feels like.

* * *

><p>Home is almost taken away from him while he's on his way back from a mission. It's his fourth week as ANBU captain, and there have been no glitches in their missions so far. Missions have gotten less frequent but took a longer time to complete, so that he's gone for days on end. He tries not to think of Ino, in an effort to keep himself focused on the mission – at least until they reach the village gates.<p>

They're maybe five miles east of Konoha when one of his subordinates stops and motions to him, "Incoming coms, taichou. From the Interrogation Unit."

Sai gulps. Interrogation? That's unusual. "Okay, what is it."

"They say Yamanaka-san is down and is being treated at the Konoha Hospital."

What does he mean down?

"They're not sure yet, taichou, but they say Haruno-san will be able to explain."

They had expected to arrive back on foot at the village in thirty minutes, but they managed to cut it down to six by flying atop his drawings. His team wobbles off the animated birds – one of his subordinates, the short one with brown-red hair, looked like he was going to be sick, the poor thing – while he rushes, dragging his tired feet step by heavy step toward the direction of the Konoha Hospital.

He nearly stumbles down three flights of stairs to get to her room. Sakura was just leaving when Sai throws himself in the space between the half-closed door and the wall, almost giving Sakura a heart attack in the process.

"What happened?" he asks, when they both manage to get their composure back.

Overexhaustion, Sakura explains. "At first, we thought it was a baby – " Sai's head spins at the word, Sakura raises an eyebrow, " – but it isn't – " Sai lets out a breath he just realized he'd been holding.

" – there's no chakra left in her body to sustain another person. There's not enough chakra _even for herself_, Sai, how long has this been going on? Has she even slept at all this week?"

For what he couldn't remember how many times now, Sai's heart sinks, again. Truthfully, he had no idea. He and Ino barely saw each other that week. Before he left for his mission, he had visited her in her office, much to everyone in her department's obvious dismay. Her face lit up when she saw him, as it always did, but her arms did feel frail and bony when she threw them around his neck.

He tells Sakura this, and the medical nin shakes her head.

"She's pushing herself too hard by juggling two of the most demanding jobs on the planet. She may have to give one up, Sai. She's not going to like it, but I'm not going to let her waste away like this. We're going to help her, you and me both. Okay? I'll run a few more tests on her when she wakes up. "

Sai nods, but at the back of his mind, a question repeats itself, Did he cause this?

Sakura moves away from the door to let him through. He sees her, feet first, covered in hospital linen, then her torso, moving with every slow sleeping breath, and then her face, paler than he remembered. Suddenly there's a feeling in his chest, like his lungs filling with water, and all he could think about was _escape, escape, this is too much, I need to go as far away from here as possible –_

It's like that day with Shin all over again. He's going deaf from all the screaming inside his head, and he's gripping the railing at the foot of the bed so tight he thinks he might break it.

Ino opens her eyes, one fluttering eyelid at a time. She smiles feebly and gives her head a noiseless tilt, a gesture he took to mean _come closer_ so he does. As quietly as possible he drags a chair close to the bed and drops his weight ungracefully on it. He stays the whole night, heart drumming in time with the rising and falling of her chest while she sleeps, drifting in and out of consciousness himself while he counted the goosebumps on his skin.

Sakura visits again in the morning, and Sai is still there. Arms and legs crossed, asleep on the chair by the bed, hair tangled every which way. He's forgotten to change his clothes from the night before and there are sleep marks on his face.

Sai stirs in his seat. He opens his eyes, left one first. Sakura could tell he thinks Ino still looks so pale, her skin still the washed out color of the moonlight even in the morning. He leans forward to brush the hair away from Ino's eyes. It's love after all, Sakura concludes, even if it's unsure, even if it could crash and burn anytime.

* * *

><p>Sakura bullies Sai into going home, to rest and sleep for real, she says, while she and the other medics ran some tests. Ino had woken up, but barely, and gave his hand a little squeeze to let him know it was okay to leave for a while, before she sank unconscious back into the sheets.<p>

He bumps, quite literally, into a running Choji in the lobby, followed closely behind by – lo and behold – a scowling Shikamaru, back from his secret not-so-secret mission in the middle of nowhere. The scowl deepens when he sees Sai's dirty clothing and disheveled hair, like somehow these things made the pale nin at fault for Ino's predicament.

_Wasn't he right, though?_

Sensing the tension, Choji opens his mouth to speak, but Shikamaru stops him. "Save the chitchat for later, Choji, right now we need to see how she's doing."

"You can't," Sai says simply.

"Excuse me?"

Choji plants a firm hand on his best friend's shoulder. "Calm down, hey."

"They're running some tests. She won't be allowed visitors until later."

"I'll go see Sakura, then."

Sai furrows his brows. "Sakura's the one administering the tests."

A moment's pause follows, and it's Choji who turns a mild shade of scarlet. _Uh-oh._

A slight twitch betrays Shikamaru's lips when he says, "Fine. I'll wait."

"Suit yourself."

Sai manages a nonchalant shrug, but really there's a throbbing in his head he can't ignore. Whether it's from a night of restless sleep or from seeing Shikamaru, he's not sure. All he's certain of is that his already rattled nerves have been unsettled even more.

Does it bother him, the thought of Ino waking up to find Shikamaru, not him, at her bedside?

_Bothered_ doesn't even begin to describe what he's feeling.

* * *

><p>It's raining out when Naruto finds him, on the roof of his apartment. Pitter-patter on the ink-umbrella is all that's keeping him from being soaked in a transparent film of rain.<p>

"You know Sakura is going to kill us both if I don't drag your mopey ass over to the hospital in the next ten minutes."

Sai doesn't respond, his eyes hidden away by damp bangs. Naruto presses on. "_He_ hasn't seen _her_."

Sai stirs, finally, shifting his weight slightly. "Is she …?" his voice disconnects halfway, but Naruto supplies the rest of the sentence. "Awake? Yes. We've got maybe five, no, four minutes before they allow visitors again. Are you sure you don't want to be the first person she sees when that happens?"

"She should see Shikamaru." The name leaves an awful taste in Sai's mouth. Bitterness? Jealousy? "He came back for her." Stupidly, he wishes he left long ago, just so he could say he came back for her, too.

He doesn't need to hear Ino's voice in his head to know just how ridiculous it was to even think that. _You can do better than that, now._

Naruto sighs. "You don't know that for sure. He could have come back for a million other reasons."

Sai looks at his friend pointedly, _oh really_?

"Hey, what does it matter? It's not important who liked who when and for how long. See, if there was a rule on that, I'd have ended up with Sakura by now." Naruto laughs at his own joke, but there's something other than amusement in his voice.

Sai, for his part, finds it difficult not to sound like a petulant, arguing child in these situations. "But _Ino_ might like_ him_ back."

He remembered that night he asked, and her head sank facedown, lower, lower, into the pillow, sinking his heart and stomach with it. She replied with a smile, a few minutes later, more riddle than answer, and just like that the question floated away, buried deep in dreamland. (But he had not dreamed the question, and her non-response had felt like a nightmare.)

"_Again,_ we don't know. No one knows what Ino is thinking except Ino, but if it's any indication, she's been with you the whole time."

Sai contemplated his options. Stay home, never show his face to her again – how far was Kumogakure? Four, five days on foot? If he used his drawings, he could get there quicker. Maybe he'll find work as ANBU somewhere.

Or he could let Naruto drag him back to the hospital, back to her, back to a whirlpool of emotions, new and a different shade each time, her wild gusts of color disturbing the learned tranquility of the black ink he's used to.

Naruto yanks him, physically, away from his thoughts. "Just go, will ya? I'm not letting you stay here, anyway. And you need to get your answer from her, not from your imagination."

So he does as his friend says, and he finds himself in her room, a few inexplicable blinks later. It's a pool of golden warmth where her hair falls on the bed. She looks at him through still matted eyelashes.

"Hey."

"Hey, Sai."

He decides that he likes the sound of his name in her voice, rolling smoothly from the tip of the tongue, the last syllable petering out in an almost-smile movement of the lips.

It's not even his real name (like all members of Root, he doesn't know his birth name) but he realizes he doesn't mind. Something about the way she said it, the way his friends said it, made him feel like it's _his, _only his, like there's no other Sai in Konoha – no other Sai who was hers, who had a hold on her heart the same way.

And just like that he got his answer. Not to the question he had asked her – _did you ever like _him_?_ no, that's not important anymore – but to the one he had asked himself at the roof of his apartment.

_Should I leave, or stay by her side from now on?_

A love like ours, she had said, we shouldn't test it.

Nor reject and desert it, he adds to himself.

Maybe he can't do anything about destinies and already-gone lifetimes, or about old friendly shadows chasing suns chasing prodigal fires lost to revenge and cosmic distance. That doesn't matter now. _Time only moved forward,_ not backward to the rust-and-dust-covered palace at the back of one's head, where moon-haired brothers and old masters stay asleep, cold to touch forever. There's no room for _her_ in that god-forsaken place.

Time only moves forward, yes, and in his head he sees a future of sunflower kisses and summer winds blowing paper curtains inside a house, prompting ripple-like laughter from fair-haired, sky-eyed children now tumbling, now dangling on each of his arms – did he dare? even think about it?

He could almost hear Shin laughing at him. _Finally... !_

His daydream is interrupted when he hears Ino say something, her recovering voice a booming against the faint rustling of the hospital sheets as she extends a hand out to him.

"Thank you for being here."

It's still pouring outside, but his ink chest and winter bones are filled with warmth.


End file.
